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PALACES, MOSQUES AND BAZAARS OF ISTANBUL

SULTAN AHMED MOSQUE (BLUE MOSQUE)

The Mosque of Sultan Ahmet owes its name to Ahmet 1 (1603-1617). It is without doubt the most beautiful masque of Istanbul. Travellers call this magnificient structure the "Blue Masque" because of the dominating blues of its interior. It was built across from the St. Sophia as a rival in 1609-16 by Sedefkar Mehmet Aja, chief architect of the Sultan. The Blue Masque has all the grace and delicate lines that are representative of masques in the Ottoman capital. St. Sophia, in its turn, is a grandiose expression, an imposing and dark Byzantine work. In the Blue Masque, the architect Mehmet Aja was inspired by the teachings of his master Koca Sinan and suppressed all disunity between its three naves. We enter the Masque by any one of three doors, the central one of which is the biggest. The interior plan consists of a rectangle measuring 51.65 meters on its longitudinal axis and 53.40 meters on its transversal. The central cupola has a diameter of 22.20 meters and its height at its Keystone measures 43 meters. The dame rests on four broken arches on four pendentives - these arches are topped by four spherical semi-domes which have three smaller spherical squinches at their base, except for the eastern side where there are only two. The four corners of the masque support four small dames. The pillars, of 5-meter diameters, are grooved and the fountains are built against the two pillars closest ta the entrance. A gallery is supported on three sides by short columns. All the walls, upto the main windows, are ornamented with green and blue earthenware. The mihrab and the mimber are in white marble from Marmara and are magnificiently sculptured. The masque is lit by 260 windows.

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